ORIGINAL: NE0
It really wasn't just the issue of using CA hinges per se. The hinges supplied were bad material and about 6 of mine had delaminated and fell apart before I ever got a chance to put them in. If that had happened after installation, I'd have had a serious problem.
Also, like you said, the slotting is the key. When I stripped the covering, I found EVERY hinge slot (precut) was doublecut. There were two slots about 1/16" above/below each other at every point. These slots were all crooked as well, causing them to meet at one end, forming a "V" wedge between them. This wedge had broken loose on most of them and slivers of balsa were just falling out of the surfaces.
Also, the LE and TE of the surfaces wasn't exceptionally thick, with slivers of balsa falling out of the backside into the wing, which left you very little surface area for the CA hinge to glue to and a very poor glue joint. I just did not feel safe with these things after seeing what I really had. Everything looked fine with the covering on... had I not stripped the plane, I would never have known what I was in for... just like the crushed ribs.
Tom
Tom,
I will look to see if mine has a similar problem. that is a good heads up.
With that in mind. Could you not have just made new slots an inch away from the bad ones and had a much easier time as quick fix and replaced the bad ca hinges with some good ones? I keep a ton of extra CA hinges on hand. Also you could double up and add a few extra's along the surface. Perhaps add an extra one in between a few of the new existing hinges. I just look at all that work to get those robarts in on this and while the end product is awesome the time involved is significant. In your case maybe a bit less since you were stripping anyway plus you are master builder. For me I would really mess things up trying to do what you did!
On mine I'll pay real careful attention to the slots and if necessary add a few extra slots and replace any hinges that look to be a problem.
Can't wait to hear your flight reports...knowing you guys should I expect some video?